


The things we do for love

by Time_Testudinem (Turtle)



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-03
Updated: 2008-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:09:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtle/pseuds/Time_Testudinem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam may be mad, but he knows exactly what he is doing. (And for all the dire warnings, it is a mostly sweet story)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The things we do for love

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dark piece that contains mention of insanity, child abuse, and in a weird way character death. Nothing graphic, but please be warned.

Sam Tyler may be crazy, that is something that he came to terms with a long time ago. But he is not crazy enough not to recognize his insanity for what it is. After all, only a crazy person would do something so blatantly suicidal on the word of a girl who had been dead for thirty years. And yet, how could he not? He owes her everything. All these years she has been his rock, what he relied on to get him through, to keep him focused. He is also not blind to the irony of using the voices in your head to keep you sane.

But it had worked. Having her there, offering encouragement, whispering advice, had helped him to succeed, to make DCI in a remarkably short period of time. Together they had locked up large numbers of criminals, but the ones that really mattered they had keep careful track of. Twenty-three. Twenty-three men who would never harm another child. Twenty-three men who would never get the chance to place broken and jagged shadows behind another set of eyes. Shadows he still saw every day in hers, and even sometimes, if he wasn’t careful, in his own. He had taken great satisfaction in putting those men away, but she had laughed in delight at their capture and vowed to haunt their dreams. He couldn’t feel sorry for them then, now he almost did. Now he had things to haunt his dreams as well.

Brutal awful terrible dreams. Nightmares about things he hasn’t dreamed in years. Things she had helped him keep at bay. Only these dreams are worse. Worse by far than any he can remember, because these dreams aren’t nightmares at all. They lack all the horror, pain and fear that _should _be there, right up until the point that he wakes up screaming.

She hadn’t told him about the dreams, when she had first conceived their mad, insane, impossible plan. She hadn’t told him a lot of things, and for that he is almost angry. But he can never stay mad at her, never say no to her, not for long. Not when she has pushed him to achieve so much. Sam knows that he would be worthless on his own, that without her he would accomplish nothing, be nothing. And once again she has prodded him into doing something extraordinary. But Sam really wishes she had thought to warn him about the dreams.

He had been becoming disillusioned with their work. Twenty-three men, such a small drop in such a large seething sick sea. And he had no hope to offer against the tide. Not for them, the hollow faces, as he made sure their pain was properly recorded, cataloged and filed. And not for themselves. Just the work, the striving to do more, be more. Everything else, in the end, just tossed aside as worthless, hopeless. Or so he had thought, until she had shown him differently. She had found hope, and brought it to him it the form of a plan that rocked the very foundation of his reality. But Sam Tyler knows he isn’t sane, and for the sake of that faint but beautiful shining hope, he will gladly rewrite his reality. He will do, and may have to do, worse things, if it means a chance to save her. He certainly didn’t blink at a step into the path of a certain blue car. After all, if it didn’t work what was he out but his own life? A life that had never been worth much anyway, that he had never gotten the hang of actually living, even with her help. At least if it had killed him, he would have died trying_ something_.

But he should have known she wouldn’t let him down. Perhaps she will forgive him for that. After all, she hadn’t been entirely sure it would work either. But he knows she is less likely to forgive him for his complete mental lapse on waking up here. He had forgotten why he was here, he hadn’t followed the plan. Instead he had blundered around like a bull in a china shop, drawing to much attention to himself, antagonizing his co-workers, and getting into actual physical fights with his boss. Then he had committed the most unforgivable sin of all. When she had come calling to remind him of what he was supposed to be doing, he didn’t remember _her_. He had told her to go away, to leave him alone, and it served him right that she had for a while. Left him alone to try and deal with this on his own. Sam knows he can’t. He couldn’t then, he certainly can’t now.

The dreams are getting worse. It is as if _that man _has finally woken up and realized his life has been hijacked. Some days Sam hopes _he_ really does have that much self awareness left, that he can feel what they have done to him. The irony tastes delicious.

It’s 1973 and Sam Tyler may not be sleeping well, but he counts that worth the cost, because in 1973 she is still alive, still hasn’t met _him._ And now she never will. There will be no fateful day by the canal in June of ‘75, no nice man with a friendly smile and a police badge to make her feel safe. No year long nightmare, no cold brutal death.

He knows most of his fellow officers think he is a bit mad, but they really have no idea. He laughs a little to himself at that. “Mad, in a coma, _and_ back in time.” But as he sits quietly and looks at the water, trying to shake off the lingering effects of another horrid night, he sees a little girl, in a red dress round the corner. There she is met by a small boy, really to young to be out without his mother. But single parents must do what they can in any time or place. The boy greets her with a hug and places his small hand in hers as they go off together to explore. Sam aches to watch them longer, to protect them. They really are too young, too innocent to be out by themselves like that, with only each other. But she reminds him that having each other has always been enough. Besides, there is work to do, a life to live, and only by living it can Sam keep those children safe from the one monster that no longer haunts this place. A monster he has locked up tight in the prison of his own mind. As long as Sam Tyler lives, Sam Williams will not.


End file.
